Not there yet.... some more growing still needed.

Well the pigs are 7 months old today and still have not hit their target weight mark yet.  Thankfully we are getting close though.

Jamie went ahead and measured them this morning and the girl pig now weighs 240lbs, with a gain of 38lbs and the boy pig weighs 218lbs, with a gain of 38lbs also.  Not as much of a gain last month but still pretty good.

Our goal now is to wait until the boy pig reaches 250lbs.  The girl will always be bigger and she will just weigh a bit more when its time to bring them to the butcher.  Hopefully it will only be another month or so.

Jamie & I spent some time this morning cleaning out the pig pen and then we threw in a bale and a half of hay.  We decided to let the pigs spread it out.  It was so funny watching them bite the flakes of hay and whip it around with their heads.  The girl was so happy, she promptly laid down and was rolling around in it.

Here are some pictures that I took today.

Pigs thinking they are helping with the cleaning

Pigs spreading the hay

Pigs spreading the hay

Pigs spreading the hay

Boy piggy

Boy piggy

Girl piggy eating.



Matilda Turns 1!!!

Today is Matilda's birthday.

Matilda, 1 years old

She is now 1.  She is doing really good.  She guards the goats all day and night and is doing a great job with it.  We haven't lost one goat yet even though we have lots of predators in the area.  Her job is going to get a lot harder in the next two months as we are expecting the births of the baby goats.  But I am sure she will handle it wonderfully.

Of course we spent some extra time with her today and she got a bone for her birthday present.

Here are some pictures of her today.

Matilda with her best friend Hailey

Best friends Hailey & Matilda

Matilda listening to Hailey

Matilda getting lovins from Daddy

Matilda on watch

Matilda & Welker check out the view

Welker saying hello to Matilda

Countdown Begins!!!

Today, Priscilla is 4 months pregnant.

Priscilla 2-20-12

We only have 30 days now to go until Priscilla's due date of March 20, 2012.  She is doing really well still. Eating lots and looking pregnant more and more each day.

Today I gave her a CD&T vaccination.  Its a yearly vaccination that we give here that helps with a few different things in maintaining a healthy goat and herd.  We give this vaccination to all adult goats once a year.  Expecting moms get it 1 month before kidding to help with passing along immunity to the kids through their colostrum when the kids first nurse.  Kids will then get their own vaccination at 2 months old and a booster 4 weeks later and then once a year from then on. Priscilla of course did wonderfully, didn't even act like she knew I was giving it to her as she was chowing down on her grain.

Sometime this week I will go ahead and order some essentials I will need to have on hand for the kidding.  Priscilla will also have her hooves trimmed in a few weeks so i won't need to bother her for awhile about that after she gives birth.

I've started to spend more time looking at Priscilla closely each day to watch the changes that are developing, like her baby bumps and any change in size of her udder, which will get bigger, filling with milk as she gets closer to delivery.  Also I have been feeling very lightly on her sides and was rewarded the other day with feeling one of the babies kick.  Which was amazing!!!!

Here are some pictures I took of her today, 2-20-12 at 4 months pregnant.

Priscilla on the milking stand

Priscilla eating hay

Priscilla eating hay

Priscilla with Windy who hopefully is also expecting



Snow in Tennessee!!

Yesterday during morning chores, it was raining off and on, then all of a sudden the rain turned into large fluffy snowflakes!!!

Snowing in our back yard

Hailey & I were so excited to see the snow.  It snowed all day, it took quite a while for it to start sticking to the ground but it finally did around lunch time.  It was so nice to look out the window all day and see it snowing.

Once it stopped, Jamie tied up one of our sleds to the 4 wheeler and pulled Drew & Hailey around on it for fun. 

Drew ready for his turn

 They also were outside for awhile playing in the snow.

Drew & Hailey out in the snow

It was so nice to have snow here since it's not often.  It made a beautiful scene but without all the snow cleanup we used to have to do back in MA.

The kids were even more excited that school was cancelled Sunday night for Monday.  Tennessee barely gets snow so they are not prepared for it here.  The schools are very cautious about safety on the roads and usually will cancel school to keep everyone safe.

Drew & Hailey out in the snow

I hope that it will snow here in Tennessee at least once a year.



Our Little Vacation to Florida

Hailey, Gramma (Vi), Drew & Papa (Paul)

We finally were able to take a long weekend vacation to Florida to visit Jamie's parents.

We had a great time.  They live in Fort Myers and it was beautiful.  Their house is in a gated community with more amenities and activities than anyone could possible want.

We left Thursday afternoon after we did the chores and drove straight through.  It took us about 12 hours, with us getting there around 6am.  Jamie went to bed while the kids and I visited with his parents.  Once it was late enough we took the kids for a walk and Jamie's mom, Vi showed us around.  We also took the kids swimming a couple of times and went for a few more walks throughout the day.  It was so nice to be out enjoying the beautiful weather.  It was around 80 degrees Friday and Saturday.

Besides swimming and taking walks, we played cards.  We also had a yummy roast beef dinner.  The kids were so tired from all of their activities that they actually went and laid down at 6pm and took and hour nap on their own.  We woke them both up for dinner and then Hailey went back to bed after she finished eating and Drew stayed up for a bit longer before going back to bed.

Saturday was beautiful again and we took the kids swimming several times.  This is the view of one of the ponds from the swimming pool.

Pond in Florida

While checking out this view, Jamie noticed an alligator sunning himself.  Jamie's parents told us that there are 3 alligators in the area that go back and forth between the 3 ponds there.

Alligator sunning in Florida

The kid were super excited to see the alligator.  The alligator was pretty big too, not that you can tell from the above picture.  He was about 7 feet long.

We also went on a few more walks.  We also took the kids to the Shell Factory and a big outdoors Farmers Market where we bought some fresh fruit and veggies.  We also got a few bags of oranges and grapefruits to bring home. We also just relaxed spending time with each other too.  Then Saturday afternoon we went to the dog race track.  They had a delicious prime rib buffet which we all enjoyed.  We also did some betting on the races.  Thankfully we really didn't lose any money.  We just like going for fun, not big gambling.  We also let the kids pick some races and placed the bets for them.  They did a great job.

Sunday we got up and had some breakfast and got the car packed up to head home.  The kids had school on Monday so we needed to come home.  Hopefully our next trip will be longer.  We all had such a great time and can't wait to go back.

Here are some pictures from our trip to Florida

Drew & Hailey on the Llama bench

Drew & Hailey swimming

Drew

Drew, Hailey & Jamie

Drew, Papa (Paul) & Hailey

Papa (Paul), Jamie, Gramma (Vi), Hailey & Drew

Hailey & Gramma (Vi)

Hailey with a orange tree

Jamie & I



Our New Buck, Welker!!!

Everybody who knows me well, knows that I am obsessive compulsive.  This is no different when it comes to goats.  Since I have gotten my goats I have done tons of research.  I love to look at other goat breeders websites.  Well in my surfing I have found spotted goats.  I have fallen in love!!!

I want to put spots into my herd and I thought the best way to do this was to get a spotted buck.  Three of my does (girl goats) have large spots of colors on their coat that is different in color than their base coat.  I'm hoping breeding them to Welker will give me spotted babies.  So Welker will stay as a buck and will be for future breeding.

So as I was saying about surfing the web, I had found a site who has lots of spotted goats.  Of course I marked it as a favorite and checked back often for when their babies would arrive.  I checked back one day and their he was.  Welker is a beautiful spotted boy with gorgeous markings that was born on December 4, 2011.  Of course we wanted to name him after a Patriot just like our other boys, so we decided on Welker.

Welker at 2 months old

Once I saw him, I knew I had to have him.  I started sending the link to Welker's picture to Jamie with sayings like, "Isn't the boy so cute? I know he would love to live here."  Jamie, the awesome husband he is let me get him.  I of course sent off an email to the breeders asking what I needed to do to retain him.  So I sent off the deposit check the next day.  I was so excited to know that he was mine.

Welker has been here of over a week now and is doing super.  The first few days were hard with him crying for his mama.  We have him with the girls because he was crying so much and we were afraid he would call in the coyotes at night and wanted to make sure Matilda could protect him.  She is doing really well with him.  Matilda has shown him that she will protect him and that she is in charge and he must listen to her.  The does on the other hand have taken longer to get used to him.  Most of the girls are butting him around to show him that they are higher in the pecking order than he is.  They are now accepting him more though and will let him stay close to them when they go out into the pasture. 

We have a pen in the barn that the wall is made out of a large pallet and Welker likes to stay in there to get away from the girls.  He is so little he can fit right through the slats.  So we always put hay in there so he has some that the girls can't eat.  He is eating his grain great too from the creep feeder.

Welker is super sweet and loves to have pats and rubs.  He will follow me around if I let him out of the barn while I do chores.  Even though Welker is a buck and is capable of breeding he will be staying in with the girls for a couple more months.  He is way to little to even breed with the girls plus they won't even let him near them.

He is a few more pictures of Welker

Welker wearing Lou's Patriots coat to keep warm

 

Welker saying hello to Hailey

Hailey snuggling Welker

Welker, don't you just love that face?

I am looking forward to seeing Welker grow up and what his babies will look like.